Wheat Berry Waldorf Salad

I'm always looking to get more whole grains into my diet. It was the Wheat Berry Salad in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking that inspired me to give wheat berries a try. I made the salad (with pine nuts, feta and spinach -- see link below) and have been occasionally craving wheat berries ever since.

Last year, I noticed a Wheat Berry Waldorf salad in the Dean & Deluca catalogue. First I pondered the absurdity of mail-order salad. Then I made my own version, extrapolating from the photo in the catalogue. This salad is a wonderful mix of textures -- chewy, crispy, crunchy, and creamy.

Wheat Berry Waldorf Salad

Wheat berries are whole kernels of wheat. After cooking, which takes a good hour (at least) in boiling water, they're chewy and nutty. I buy hard wheat berries at my local health food store, but given a recent surge in popularity, I bet you can find them at a well-stocked grocery store. This recipe makes a lot (5 cups) so I typically serve it first as a dinner side, then pack leftovers for weekday lunches.

5 cups water
1.5 cups hard wheat berries

Dressing
4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoons apple juice
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon stone ground mustard
1/8 teaspoon salt, more to taste
1/8 teaspoon pepper, more to taste

1 apple, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
3/4 cup toasted walnuts
1/4 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese, optional

Bring the water to a boil in medium saucepan. Add the wheat berries and simmer covered for 60 to 90 minutes until desired tenderness. Start tasting the wheat berries for doneness after an hour, at which point they're still quite firm. I like them tender but chewy, which requires an additional 15 to 30 minutes. Drain and transfer to a large bowl to cool somewhat.

Prepare the dressing. Whisk olive oil, apple juice, vinegar, and mustard till blended. Stir in salt and pepper. Taste and add salt as desired.

Add the apple, celery, walnuts, and cherries to wheat berries. Pour on the dressing and stir well. Top with blue cheese if desired. Taste for salt and add more as needed. Store salad in refrigerator.

Makes approximately 10 (1/2 cup) servings.

Nutrition facts per (1/2 cup) serving: 242 calories, 6 g protein, 13 g fat, 3 mg cholesterol, 85 mg sodium, 5 g fiber

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You can find the recipe for Heidi Swanson's Wheat Berry Salad with Citrus, Toasted Pine Nuts, Feta, and Spinach from Super Natural Cooking at Salon.com here, you'll need to scroll down a bit.

Check out the Barefoot Contessa's Wheat Berry Salad recipe here.

How to Host a Spooky Dinner

Spooky Dinner is an annual Halloween tradition for our family. Every year we get together with our good friends and their kids for a low-key, family-friendly dinner party.

It started as a way to celebrate the holiday beyond candy and costumes. The focus is on food with an emphasis on fun. Over the years I've tailored the fright factor to suit the ages of the kids. And I've learned to gauge the level of gross for the adults.


Here are some party-planning tips to get you started on your own Spooky Dinner.

MENU PLANNING

Plan your menu at least one week before your Spooky Dinner so you have ample time to shop, decorate, and cook.

• You'll find tons of Halloween themed recipes on the internet; try searching for "Halloween food" and "Halloween recipes." Three great sites for family-friendly Halloween recipes online are Family Fun, Food Network, and Martha Stewart.com.


• Check out my list of tried and true Spooky Dinner menu selections below.


• Give each menu item a fun Halloween-themed title and a brief spooky description. Then type up your menu, using creepy fonts and clip-art. Reading the menu is fun for your guests and sets the tone for the evening. Here's a sample menu you can use for ideas. Click here for a better view.

MENU SUGGESTIONS

Here are some menu items I've served over the years to jump-start your brainstorming.

Spooky Starters

• Demon Eyeballs (use your favorite recipe for Devilled Eggs, decorate with a bit of food coloring or ketchup, green olive garnish)




• Vampire Fangs with Dipping Sauce (Apples Wedges with Strawberry Preserves)


• Dracula's Bloody Salad (check out my recipe for Roasted Beets with Oranges & Citrus Vinaigrette)


• Oozing Skulls (skull-shaped cheese quesadillas)

Main Course Ideas

• Werewolf Claws (breaded chicken tenders, I adapted this recipe)



• Monster Bones (baby back pork ribs)



• Mummy on a Stick (breadstick wrapped hot dogs on a skewer)



• Spooky Stew (ground beef chili with "BOO" topping, pictured at top of post)


• Tangled Snakes and Morbid Meatballs (spaghetti & meatballs)

Scary Side Dishes

• Ghoulish Potatoes (mashed potatoes, find a recipe here)



• Grubs & Worms & Bugs (buttered green beans & carrots with toasted walnuts, pictured above)


• Alien Monster Heads (braised Brussels sprouts)

Devilish Desserts

• Witch Fingers (your favorite sugar cookies with strawberry jam and almond garnish)



• Creepy Eyeball Cupcakes (your favorite cupcakes with peachy O's gummy candy, Mason dots, and red & white frosting)



• Rotten Apples (caramel apples with chocolate chunks & gummy worms)

Beverages

• Bloody Bug Juice (strawberry punch with floating blueberries, I've used this recipe with good results)


• Swamp Soda (fruit punch with orange slices)

ROOM DECOR

Decorations help set the mood. Hang up your kids Halloween art projects and string some Halloween lights.


Go to the pumpkin farm and stock up. You can never have too many pumpkins. When the kids were younger, we opted to paint our pumpkins. For jack-o-lanterns, let the kids draw a design for parents to carve.



I transform our dining room into a spider's den with package of spider webbing, a bag of plastic spider rings, and some mini 3M adhesive wall hooks. It's high-impact but low-cost. I stick the hooks high on the walls just below the ceiling, then hang the webbing, stretching it across the ceiling between hooks. Be sure the webbing is high enough to clear everyone's heads and well beyond the reach of young children. Then hang the plastic spider rings into the webbing.

TABLE SETTING

Use a paper or plastic Halloween themed tablecloth for quick clean-up. Candles are the perfect centerpiece. Orange or black tapers are easy to find and Halloween themed candles start popping up everywhere this time of year.

Miniature pumpkins make great place-cards. Just tie on name-tags with some curling ribbon or write the names of guests right on the pumpkins with a black permanent marker. One year, we made cute little bat place-cards. You'll find the instructions (plus lots of other great decorating ideas) here at Martha Stewart's website.

START YOUR OWN SPOOKY DINNER TRADITION

Spooky Dinner has become a cherished tradition for our family. The evening is frightfully fun, a casual way to kick off the holiday season. I'd love to know about your Halloween family celebrations. And I'm always on the lookout for Spooky Food.

Daring Cooks Vietnamese Pho: Beef Noodle Soup

Vietnamese Pho was the October Daring Cooks challenge, guest-hosted by celebrity food blogger, Jaden of Steamy Kitchen. Pho is the Vietnamese version of chicken or beef noodle soup. The broth is served with rice noodles, meat, and an array of toppings including lime, chiles, bean sprouts, and cilantro. I chose the beef version because beef broth is one of my favorite foods.

The Vietnamese beef broth started out the same as my traditional version, with water, bones, beef, and onion. The spice packet and aromatics however, took a detour East. In place of parsley, thyme, bay, and peppercorns, there was cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, and fennel. Garlic was replaced by ginger. The inclusion of fish sauce and a bit of sugar was another exotic departure from the usual.

Another unique aspect to the flavor of the Vietnamese broth came from toasting the spices for a few minutes in a dry pan to intensify the flavors. Most of the spices required for the recipe are available at a grocery store, except for star anise. Penzey's is a great source for star anise and almost any other spice.

I stayed true to Jaden's recipe, with two variations. I chose not to parboil the bones. It's a refinement I associate with professional chefs. I made sure to rinse the bones well and then skimmed assertively. Also, I opted to cook the beef briefly in the boiling broth first, rather than put raw beef slices directly into the serving bowls as directed. (Although Jaden's photo of medium rare beef looks more enticing than my well done beef!)

The final bowl was a blend of contrasts: sweet and sour, hot and cold, tender and crunchy, savory and spicy. Familiar, yet foreign at the same time. I'll admit to going back for seconds. You can find the recipe for Vietnamese Beef Pho here at Jaden's blog, Steamy Kitchen. Or maybe you'd prefer Jaden's Chicken Pho, here. Go ahead, get steamy, make some soup!

Diner Style Cheeseburgers

One of the best things about Racine, Wisconsin is Kewpee's. It's an old-fashioned burger joint serving up good food and friendly service. Customers sit on stools at the horseshoe counter, servers still take your order with pen and paper.



The burgers are juicy, the buns are toasted, the crinkle-cut fries are crispy, and the root beer is homemade. Plus, there's a sense of community you just don't feel at a typical fast food restaurant.

A Kewpee cheeseburger is the standard by which my kids measure all other burgers. They complained my burgers at home were too thick, too crusty, too charred -- "we only like Kewpees, Mom."

So on our next visit to Kewpees, we sat right across from the grill and I paid attention. I can't match the practiced technique and timing that comes from years of experience at the grill station. (You can see a pic of Kewpee chefs in action on their website here.) But I adapted the Kewpee method for my home kitchen.

Burger nights at home now get enthusiastic response. The family says my burgers are "almost as good as Kewpees." There's no substitute for a visit to Kewpees, but every once in a while, it's fun to capture the diner experience at home.

Kewpee's-Style Cheeseburger

If you're ever in downtown Racine, grab a burger at Kewpees (and check out their display of Kewpee collectibles). Otherwise, make a Kewpee's-style burger at home. I use an electric non-stick griddle to accommodate about 1 pound of beef (6 burgers) at once. You could adapt the method using a non-stick frying pan on the stove-top, but you'll need to cook the burgers in two batches. We love to serve these burgers with homemade french fries, but chips make for a quick weeknight dinner.

1.125 pounds ground chuck (18 ozs.)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 soft white hamburger buns
6 deli slices sharp cheddar

Heat griddle to 350 degrees F. Combine ground chuck, salt, and pepper. Mix gently but thoroughly. Form 6 thin hamburger patties, about 4 inches in diameter. Transfer the burgers to the hot griddle and cook for 3 minutes till burgers are browned on bottom. Flip burgers over and cook for another 3 minutes, or until burgers are cooked through (internal temp at least 160 degrees F). Transfer burgers to clean plate.

Remove all but about 2 teaspoons of grease from the surface of griddle. Place the buns cut-side down on the griddle. Cook for a minute or so until buns are toasted to your liking. Put the toasted bun bottoms under the burgers, set the bun tops aside. Turn off the griddle; wait a minute for it to cool a bit.

At this point you can put the cheese directly on your burgers. We like to melt it slightly on the griddle before topping the burger, just like they do at Kewpees. Until you get the hang of it, it's best to only heat only 1 or 2 slices at a time.

Put the cheese slices directly on the griddle. After 30 to 60 seconds, when the entire slice has softened and is melting (but not bubbling), scrape up each slice of cheese and quickly transfer to burger. The cheese will crumple up on the spatula a bit and might be difficult to place neatly on the burger. The trick is to work quickly and confidently (and use a spatula that won't scratch your non-stick surface). Don't worry if the cheese is a bit messy -- it will be meltingly delicious.

Finish the burgers with the toasted bun tops. Serve immediately with your favorite condiments. Grilled onions make a nice addition too.

Makes 6 cheeseburgers.

Nutrition facts per cheeseburger with toasted bun: 389 calories, 23 g protein, 21 g carbs, 23 g fat, 77 mg cholesterol, 731 mg sodium, 0 g fiber

Buttermilk Dressing with Feta & Mint

Early this summer, while shopping for herbs at the garden store, I watched a young boy pick a mint plant off the shelf and eagerly place it on his mom's cart. When his mom noticed the mint, after carefully cross-checking the herbs in her cart against a list, she exclaimed, "Oh no, we don't want this weed in our garden."

I thought to myself, she's obviously never had a mojito. Then I grabbed two mint plants for my herb garden and vowed to make the most of the maligned herb.

My mint flourished and became the secret ingredient in this Feta Buttermilk Dressing with Mint. The flavor of feta is surrounded by tart lemon and sweet mint, all floating in low-fat buttermilk. I couldn't get enough of this stuff.



I made a batch nearly every week, using it mostly as a salad dressing but also as a dip for raw vegetables. I loved it on roasted beets, although I recommend that pairing with reservations, as the creamy white dressing eventually turns a lurid shade of pink. Not that there's anything wrong with that.



I started out with Mark Bittman's Yogurt-Feta Dressing from the NYT, here. It's a great recipe, but when I ran out of plain yogurt, I used buttermilk. I always keep a quart in the fridge for pancakes. Plus I was looking to trim the fat a bit.



Buttermilk Dressing with Feta & Mint

(click here for printer-friendly version)

This recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman's Yogurt-Feta Dressing. If you want a chunky, cheesy consistency, combine the ingredients in a bowl and mash the feta with a fork or potato masher. But it's just as easy to whiz all the ingredients together in the blender. Lately, I've been throwing in a shallot, which lends the barest hint of heat. The mint is marvelous, but vary the herbs to suit your preferences; I occasionally threw in fresh oregano, chives, or parsley with happy results.

4 ounces crumbled feta (about 1/2 cup packed)
1/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon lowfat buttermilk
zest from 1 lemon (about 2 teaspoons)
juice from 1 lemon (about 3 Tablespoons)
1/2 cup tightly packed fresh mint leaves
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 small shallot (optional)

Combine all ingredients in blender and blend as needed till thoroughly combined. If you'd prefer a thinner dressing, add buttermilk one Tablespoon at a time till it's just right. Taste the dressing and add more salt and pepper as needed. Use immediately or store in refrigerator. Dressing thickens a bit when chilled. Just stir well to loosen it up.

Makes about 1 cup.

Serving Size: 2 Tablespoons

Nutrition Facts per 2 Tablespoons: 86 calories, 3 g protein, 8 g fat, 15 mg cholesterol, 276 mg sodium, 0.25 g fiber

Because you can never have too many recipes for feta dressing:

• David Lebovitz' Creamy Feta-Red Wine Vinegar Salad Dressing
• Pinch My Salt's Cucumbers with Creamy Feta Dressing
• Bon Appetit'sWilted Spinach Salad with Warm Feta Dressing
• Mark Bittman's (one more time) Yogurt-Feta Dressing

Serious Pie: Pizza Margherita

Ever since visiting Tom Douglas' pizza joint in Seattle -- Serious Pie -- that's what my kids call pizza margherita, a chewy and crisp crust topped simply with a trio of tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil. It's a deceptively simple pie best suited to late summer when the tomatoes are sweet and the basil is lustrous. So when I recently found myself in possession of a bulging heirloom tomato, fresh mozzarella from Crave Brothers, and a hearty basil plant that survived our cool, dry summer... it was time to get serious.

For a serious pizza margherita, I use a different dough than my standard thin crust pizza. I call it a "springy dough" because of the way the edges quickly expand in the hot oven. It's a wet, sticky and slack dough, but it yields a chewy crust with a crispy bottom and a nice thick rim.

The keys to topping a stellar margherita pizza are fresh ingredients plus a generous dose of coarse salt and extra virgin olive oil. Fresh tomatoes, thinly sliced and tossed with salt and balsamic vinegar take the place of tomato sauce. Home grown or farm fresh tomatoes are best for this pizza.

Rounds of fresh mozzarella replace the standard shreds. Fresh mozzarella is a semi-soft, high-moisture cheese that comes packed in water or vacuum-sealed plastic. In my local stores, there's only one or two brands to choose from. I've found the best predictor of quality is the sell-by date. Check the dates and choose accordingly. If you're buying it from bulk containers at the deli counter, ask for a sample to judge the freshness.

You often see whole basil leaves on pizza margherita, but I like skinny ribbons of fresh basil so you get a burst of basil in every bite.

Dough for Pizza Margherita

My dough recipe is adapted from the NYT recipe by Sam Sifton, himself adapting from Jeffrey Steingarten. I use my bread machine, but you'll find directions for manual mixing in the NYT recipe, here. This dough is wet and sticky, a bit hard to handle. Be sure to use lots of flour on your hands and the counter when you're rolling or stretching the dough. This recipe makes two 12-14 inch pizzas.

1.5 cup water
3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 cups unbleached all-purpose or bread flour
1 1/8 teaspoon table salt
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

Pour water and oil into bread machine pan. Add the flour, distributing it evenly over the water. Add the salt around the edges of the pan. Make a slight indentation in the center of the flour and add the yeast. Set the pan in the bread machine and choose the "Dough" cycle.

When the dough cycle is done, punch it down and transfer to a well oiled storage bag. Store the dough in the refrigerator for at least 4 to 6 hours, preferably for a day or two. Let the dough come to room temperature before shaping. Divide the dough in 2 equal portions.

Pizza Margherita

I find that fresh mozzarella demands a fair amount of salt. I'm currently loving the grey sea salt from Penzeys, not as pretty as Fleur de Sel, but with bright flavor, crackly texture, and a much lower price. Coarse kosher salt would be my next choice, but table salt is fine -- just use about half as much. This recipe makes two 12-14 inch pizzas. Unless you're skilled at shaping pizzas by hand, I recommend using a rolling pin on this dough. I find it makes for a better looking pizza that's more uniform in thickness and shape.

2 large ripe tomatoes
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon coarse salt
8 ounces fresh mozzarella
10 leaves fresh basil

1 batch pizza dough at room temp (above)
cornmeal for transferring pizza
extra virgin olive oil for brushing dough
additional salt to taste

Set baking stone on bottom rack of oven. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F for about an hour. Core tomatoes, cut into half or quarters, then slice thinly. Gently toss tomatoes with olive oil, vinegar, and salt. Slice mozzarella thinly. Cut basil into thin ribbons.

Roll or stretch dough into two 12 to 14 inch rounds on a well-floured surface. Sprinkle a pizza peel or sheet pan generously with corn meal. Transfer one of the shaped pizza doughs to the peel or sheet pan. Give the peel a shake to make sure dough slides easily. Add more cornmeal if it's sticking. Let the dough rest 5 to 10 minutes before topping.

Pour about 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil onto the shaped pizza dough and use a brush (or back of spoon) to spread it out evenly. Scatter half the tomato pieces evenly over the dough. Then place half the mozzarella evenly over the dough, followed by half the basil. Finally, top the pizza with a good sprinkling of coarse salt to taste.

Transfer pizza to baking stone. Bake for 4 to 5 minutes, or until dough is set and cheese is browned to your liking. Let the pizza cool for 10 minutes before slicing. Repeat with second pizza.

Makes 2 pizzas, 8 slices per pizza.

Nutrition facts per slice: 177 calories, 6 g protein, 8 g fat, 7 mg cholesterol, 312 mg sodium, 1 g fiber

Helpful pizza links:

• Check out my post on thin crust pizza here.
• A Pizza Primer is helpful, from The Fresh Loaf, a recipe based website for bread enthusiasts.
• I've said it before, but if you're passionate about pizza and books, American Pie is a great book with fool-proof recipes by Peter Reinhart.
• Take a look at the 10 paths to painless pizza making at the Smitten Kitchen.
• I love all the inventive pizza toppings on the food blog, Eggs on Sunday, like this one with sausage, fennel and kale.

BLT from Scratch Challenge

I did many extraordinary things this summer. But the one thing that stands out, that made my husband think I'm a rock star, made my relatives question my sanity, and made me feel competent and sexy (like a cross between Martha Stewart and Nigella Lawson) was cure and smoke bacon.



It all started when food writer, Michael Ruhlman, issued his BLT From Scratch Summertime Challenge. In his own words: "From scratch means: You grow your tomato, you grow your lettuce, you cure your own bacon or pancetta, you bake your own bread (wild yeast preferred and gets higher marks but is not required), you make your own mayo."

This was just the push I needed to revisit Mr. Ruhlman's book, Charcuterie, and take a stab at homemade bacon. I quickly planted some tomatoes in my backyard container herb garden, and started scouting around for pork belly. I tried not to worry about my lack of homegrown lettuce or my ignorance about wild yeast.

I cured the pork belly in the refrigerator with a curing mixture of kosher salt, pink salt, and sugar for 7 days, as per Mr. Ruhlman's recipe in Charcuterie. Then I smoked it with applewood for several hours. At this point, I carved a few slices, and fried them up in a cast iron pan. I polished off the salty, chewy, porky slabs and launched into a bacon-fueled happy dance in my kitchen.



Then I waited for my tomatoes to ripen. (In the meantime, I enjoyed many practice BLT sandwiches like the one pictured below using bakery bread and store-bought mayo.) But this morning, the day before the BLT Challenge deadline, my tomatoes were still green. Since I was losing points by using lettuce from my CSA box and commercial yeast in my bread, I decided to use fried green homegrown tomatoes in my BLT.



So today for lunch, I made a batch of pita bread, whipped up fresh mayonnaise, fried some green tomatoes, cooked up the last of my bacon, and made a BLT from scratch.

To compensate for my lack of homegrown lettuce, I added chopped sorrel from my herb garden to the mayo. And I glazed my bacon with local maple syrup to balance the tartness of green tomatoes and the bitterness from the olive oil in the mayo.

So pictured below is my entry for Michael Ruhlman's BLT From Scratch Summertime Challenge: Maple-Glazed Applewood-Smoked Homemade Bacon, Fried Green Backyard Tomatoes, and Pinehold Gardens Romaine, with Homemade Sorrel Mayo on Artisan Pocket Flatbread. I don't expect my BLT to win any contest, but it made for one helluva lunch.



Here are some helpful links if you're craving more...

If you'd like to make your own bacon (or pancetta or sausage or salami), I highly recommend the book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn. If you're not so inclined, I highly recommend you try Nueske's bacon and other smoked products.

Check out my post on fried green tomatoes from last summer for my recipe. Sure there's nothing better than a ripe, juicy tomato... unless it's a green tomato you've encased in a salty, oregano-flecked, cormeal coating and fried up in olive oil.

I used this pita recipe from the blog Farmgirl Fare. It's the only recipe I know of that gives you sandwich-ready bread in about an hour. Except for pizza dough, it's the bread I make most often.

For the homemade mayonnaise, I turned to my trusty cookbook, How to Cook Everything , by Mark Bittman. You can find Mr. Bittman's recipe in the New York Times here.

I've been enjoying fresh produce from a local urban farm, Pinehold Gardens. You can learn about Community Supported Agriculture and find farms in your area at the Local Harvest.org website.